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Google Glass rendered irrelevant by Android Wear

It seems like every post about Google Glass is dripping with bias either for or against the device, so before we get into it here's a little transparency: I'm Google Glass Explorer #1499. I paid $1500 (£880) of my own money to get Glass, and I've owned the device for over a year. I thought Glass was really amazing when it first showed up, and I wrote a review after about a month and half of ownership. Once the novelty wore off though, Glass spent most of its life in a drawer, only to occasionally be dusted off to try out the newest update.

Now, after playing with the Android Wear emulator for a few months and actual Wear hardware for a few days, it's time to call it: Google Glass is obsolete. Android Wear on a smartwatch does nearly everything Glass can do and then some, and it comes in a package that is significantly more ergonomic, convenient, cheaper, and socially acceptable. Android Wear has almost all the positives of Google Glass and none of the negatives.

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Android Wear does that. It has the same hotword detection and voice commands as Google Glass, and it's almost as hands free. In some respects, Wear is actually better. Google Glass requires a head flick up or pad touch to start listening, but Wear is always on and always ready for a voice command. Both devices hook up to Google's knowledge graph and can answer general-knowledge questions, and both can send a text to your friend with nothing but your voice.

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You want a quick way to deal with incoming notifications?

Here, Wear fixes a big complaint many users have with Glass.

Glass requires handmade compatibility with each individual app, but Android Wear is automatically compatible with every app, as well as third party applications that have never heard of Android Wear. Wear receives every notification your phone receives, and you can dismiss it or press an action button on the notification. Google has announced that the magic that makes Wear work with everything will eventually come to Google Glass, but here the Android Team has lapped Google X after the tiny skunkworks team had a year-plus head start.

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That about covers it for the positives of Google Glass. You get quick access to information and notifications with great voice commands. The only thing Google Glass has over an Android Wear smartwatch is the camera, but as we're about to talk about, that is also the source of many of Glass's problems.

The Android Wear smartwatches, like the Moto 360, look like something some folks may actually want to wear

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A smartwatch is more socially acceptable. Since Wear runs on a smartwatch and not a face computer, it doesn't freak people out.

You aren't pointing a camera at people 24/7, and when you are talking to someone, they look at you instead of this weird thing on your face. You can normally go about your day while wearing a smartwatch. You can eat dinner at a restaurant while wearing it, go to a movie, or get drunk at the bar. People will not flag you down from 20 yards away to talk/complain about your face computer.

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When you wear Glass in public, Glass defines you. You are "that person wearing Google Glass." Most people won't even notice your fancy watch.

Furthermore, there's all this fuss over the camera, but the Glass camera produces pretty poor pictures. It's a 5MP shooter from the Galaxy Nexus-era of awful Android cameras. A GoPro is much cheaper and more appropriate for first person video and pictures, and the coolest part of Glass's camera, the live streaming video, was disabled by Google because it didn't work well. Plus, since Glass has to be tethered to a smartphone, there's always a better camera in your pocket anyway.

Wearing a smartwatch is more convenient.

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As we've established, Glass is not acceptable in all situations, so when you take it off, what do you do with it? Glass doesn't fold up, meaning that wherever you want to stow it, the unit will always take up a horizontal slice that is the size of a human head. I've yet to hear a good solution for carrying Glass without having it on your face. Terrible solutions include precariously wearing your $1500 face computer around your neck, or putting Glass on top of your head like a pair of sunglasses, which will grease up the eyepiece.

Since you never have to take a smartwatch off in public, you don't have to worry about stashing it somewhere. And when you aren't using a smartwatch, it's easy to forget that you're wearing it. Glass is always this thing on your face that you and other people constantly see.

A smartwatch is more ergonomic.

If you've never used Google Glass, the screen sits above (not in) your normal line of vision. Since it rests on your head, you can't use your neck, you're stuck with only eye movements. For a similar experience, try looking at your right eyebrow. Looking up like that for any significant amount of time hurts, and combined with the distortion-y brick of glass hovering above just above your field of view, for many people Glass is the perfect recipe for a headache.

Since Wear runs on a smartwatch instead of your face, you can use your neck to look at it. Using your neck is awesome. You don't get eyestrain from looking up all the time.

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It has a better display.

Don't get us wrong, the Google Glass display is cooler -- there are few things out there more impressive that a transparent, floating display -- but that cool transparency brings with it a lot of problems. Glass uses white text on a transparent background, which means it shows up best on a dark background. The high contrast white-text-on-nothing screens aren't so bad, but a lot of Glass interfaces use text-on-a-picture, which can be impossible to see depending on what you are looking at.

Android Wear on a smartwatch uses a regular LCD\AMOLED. Those displays work in many more conditions than the transparent Glass display.

Android Wear devices are cheaper.

Glass is $1500. The LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live are both around $200. Did we mention they do everything Glass does and then some?

Google 'Project Aura' hires Amazon engineers for rebirth of Glass

Supporting Glass is mostly the concern of Google X, and not many other divisions of Google seem interested in playing nice with it.

For instance, it took Glass eight months to support Google's IM service (first Google Talk, then Google Hangouts). Android Wear is being spearheaded by the Android division, one of the most impactful and important teams at Google. Not many in the company supported Glass with apps, but every facet of Google will work to offer its services on Android Wear. While Glass is just a developer beta, Wear is a major consumer product that is sure to see company-wide support.

With your watch present, you don’t need to enter a passcode into your handset

LG

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Wear will see better third-party support too. Glass is prohibitively expensive, only available in America, and until recently, even people that wanted it had a very difficult time buying it. Android Wear devices are much cheaper, available in more countries, and there are no restrictions on sales. It's a no-brainer than that the install base of Android Wear will be much higher, which will lead to much better third-party app support. Not that Wear really needs support from anyone, since it already mostly works with many apps and services thanks to the notification API.

But still, developers will go out of their way to make sure their apps work great on Wear.

Google I/O is one of the biggest gatherings of public Glass wearers on the planet, so at the show I talked to many Glass users about Android Wear. "How do you feel about Glass now that Android Wear is out?" I asked. Almost all of them talked about how much faster it is compared to Glass, which most said has been slow and buggy since the KitKat update. A few cited that they liked Glass's "head up" working position rather than having to look down at a watch, which is a valid point, but I don't think that overcomes the other issues with Glass.

So are face computers like Google Glass dead? For now, we would say so. The real promise of a face computer is taking advantage of the wearer's vision, which Glass is not set up to do. Augmented reality is the killer app for a face computer, and it's the only experience that is unique to the form factor. A device that could understand what the user is looking at and could display relevant information over the wearer's vision could be extremely useful and possibly even life changing.

Glass doesn't have the battery life, sensors, or processing power for augmented reality, and the display isn't in the wearer's direct line of sight, making it inappropriate for an information overlay. Google isn't even interested in experimenting with the cooler possibilities of a face computer. Facial recognition, another unique possible feature, is banned from the Google Glass app store.

The most telling aspect of the Glass vs Wear choice is that Glass has had a year-long head start over Wear, and Wear has come out and met or exceeded Glass in most areas. These new form factors are a commitment to a new platform and a new way of doing things, and it looks like Wear is the platform that will win out. Yes, Glass will get better and cheaper, but so will Android wear. It's clear where Google's main effort is.

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Until Google fully embraces the unique qualities of a face computer, Glass will always be an inferior product. With no augmented reality and no facial recognition, Glass is just a computer screen that you can easily access. Google Glass is uncomfortable to wear, it's uncomfortable to use in public, and many people are uncomfortable being near someone who's wearing one.

A smartwatch accesses information just as quickly, without any of the negatives that come with a face computer. Going forward, Glass' awkwardness in form factor and appearance need to be offset by some amazing, unique features for it to be worth it. But when Android Wear smartwatches can do everything Glass can do -- in a cheaper, better, less awkward package -- why bother?